12 Comments »

1. Piers Morgan was conned by fake photos, and got the boot.

   Blair knowingly plagiarized a student paper off the internet, presented it as "intelligence" and took us to war.

   Doesn’t he deserve the sack for this far graver offence?

   Comment by Ron F — 15 May 2004 on 1:35 pm | Link

2. There’s a big difference Ron – Tony Blair is the PM and therefore unaccountable. Added to that is the fact that, as a politician, he (and all his ilk) he has no honour, integrity or shame. So what do you expect?!?!?

   Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 15 May 2004 on 3:07 pm | Link

3. Fact is, no one has *ever* been sacked for publishing government lies.

   Maybe that’s a new definition of government. The old one: "Government is the organization that asserts the monopoly of violence and coercion."

   Government is the organization which can never be accused of lying.

   Comment by Julian — 16 May 2004 on 12:59 pm | Link

4. Again we are subject to the lies of the press. Journalists – and editors in particular – have all the power to spread rumour, lies, innuendo or whatever with no responsibility and unlike opposition parties, not even the risk of getting into power.

   Instead of discussing the various allegations of abuse conducted by some Americans, the Mirror attempted to tar our own forces with the same brush to gain headlines and it would appear to justify it’s own anti-war stance. I am not saying that such abuses have not taken place – and if they have the perpetrators should be rooted out – but that the Mirror went for cheap and sensational headlines over known facts.

   No thought was given to the Iraqis who want – yearn for – a peaceful and stable country above all after years of brutality which will be made more difficult if attacks promoted by hatred continue – most of which kill Iraqis. No thought was given to the increase in risk the forces already face both in Iraq and elsewhere trying to bring the peace that we enjoy to the people.

   The main determinant was that the paper maintained its circulation. Only when journalists regain their integrity and check their sources – including photographs – will we generate a journalistic process that is worthy of respect and thence a press that can truly monitor the politicians without trivialising, reducing to one-word headlines and otherwise misrepresenting the facts.

   Of course that will also require an increase in understanding by the readers, predicated on literacy but who better is placed to promote this than the press? Or does the press not care that they are the main source of disinterest, disinformation and disgrace?

   Give me even half-honest policitians any day than some of the easily conned hacks willing to do anything to forward their circulation and political views. Spin is the politicians’ response to this anarchy. Who can blame them?

   Morgan lost his job because he refused to realise and admit his error. In many respects he was a good editor but on this occasion he lost the plot. It is a sad day when someone as influential is not big enough to own up to their errors.

   Even if there may have been some truth behind the allegations, it was thoroughly reprehensible to back these with pictures that were not only fake – and clearly so to many non-experts – but of such political importance in the present climate.

   Al-Qeida, Dr Goebbels and all others must be rolling in their bunkers and graves.

   Comment by John — 17 May 2004 on 9:44 am | Link

5. Some of the comments that have been made in the press provide the best possible explanation of my feelings on the subject:

   What a sad day for British journalism. The war has taken down three journalists – the casualties in the BBC, and now the Mirror, are unquestionably a sign that people aren’t doing enough to ensure that their articles can withstand the inevitable criticism.

   This divisive war has taken all of its losses in the pro-war camp as well; the side with the most ammunition, arguably, is responsible for the largest amount of friendly fire.

   Just like in real life, but it’s media. 🙂

   Comment by Gregory Block — 17 May 2004 on 9:52 am | Link

6. Are you kidding? Government is accused of lying all the time. Harder to prove, of course – but then again, the civil service structure makes it much easier for ministers to claim that leaked facts aren’t their responsibility, doesn’t it.

   This is one of those bizarre things that differentiates the UK system from the U.S. one – ministers are responsible, for the most part, all the way down the chain – and when a new government comes in, a lot of people in the top end of the U.S. equivalent of civil service get replaced, moved around, or reshuffled appropriate to the aims of the government in power.

   The benefit is that the responsibility goes all the way up the chain; the flaw is that you get lots of churn for very little gain, and you end up with all kinds of problems as a result.

   However, arguably, the UK ‘chinese walls’ of the Civil Service, which protects both ministers and the civil service, while historical, can be argued to not be in the interests of the average lay-person who wants a single figure to be in control of policy and responsible all the way down the chain of command – that isolation of civil servant from political control ensures a nice, fluffy tenured position, but doesn’t necessarily do much to get change pushed through.

   Comment by Gregory Block — 17 May 2004 on 9:59 am | Link

7. Ministers in the UK are in control of policy and responsible for actions of their civil servants all the way down the chain. For some odd reason the press and public seem willing to accept the sacrifice of a civil servant rather than the Minister responsible but this is not how the system is designed.

   Why do you think that ‘leaked facts’ come from the civil service and not the party machine?

   On your point about change, it is politicians that prevent radical change not civil servants. Anything radical is also risky and modern politicians don’t want to take any action that could put their career at risk. Politicians blame civil servants for resisting change that turns out to be popular (no mention ever made of resistance to unpopular changes) but never mention that they were the ones who rejected that change because it was too risky.

   Comment by Uncarved Block — 17 May 2004 on 3:00 pm | Link

8. "responsible for", except can’t actually fire or have line management responsibility for.

   You can’t tell me that an individual will be happy to work on policies that go completely against my interests; nor can you tell me that said individual will be the best choice for that job given that political truth.

   All I’m saying is that the American system doesn’t suffer from this potential flaw: it is essentially impossible. You fire off and replace the whole top level management all the way down to departmental managers when you take office.

   That is a very different reality than the one we have here – where civil service is essentially protected from ministerial control; the active veto on work happens from the top down; the passive veto, or "that which I don’t want to do I won’t do or won’t do well", happens from the bottom up – and cannot be controlled through the current structure of the civil service.

   If you’re going to try and convince me how great a "jobs for life" approach is to civil service, you’re barking up the wrong tree. 🙂

   Comment by Gregory Block — 17 May 2004 on 6:40 pm | Link

9. All governments make mistakes and it is for the press to highlight these but it is not their job to lie to us.

   Comment by gary gatter — 18 May 2004 on 4:09 pm | Link

10. That’s a bit simplistic, Gary…

    Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 18 May 2004 on 8:00 pm | Link

11. See Martin Kettle’s piece in the MediaGuardian.

    Comment by David Boothroyd — 18 May 2004 on 10:03 pm | Link

12. (Registration Required)
    http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/comment/0,7495,1219124,00.html

    "Yet Morgan is laughing all the way to a shiny new career in television…"

    Well, one thing the UK has never been short of is a desperate, sad TV broadcaster. I have no doubt that he’ll do very well at Channel 5 or ITV.

    "…and his demand for a \xA31m payoff seems to have touched no general nerve of outrage."

    Erm. With whom? What, that we haven’t seen it mentioned in the papers? Ask people – I’m sure they’ll be cross; but ask people whether they’re surprised, and they’ll say no. This goes back to the fundamental question – the one of trust. Did anyone *ever* think Piers wasn’t going to find some way to get money out of a firing? Do we honestly feel that the people who run most of the papers are trustworthy, honest individuals who aren’t looking to make a fast buck out of the reader?

    Come on. Be serious. You can tell which papers are after the fast buck, and which people who edit them, by the papers themselves, and the headlines they print.

    Stating that the British public isn’t in uproar over some top level manager shafting their company for a million-pound golden parachute? Hell, we expect it these days. That fact alone says much more about us than anything else does.

    Comment by Gregory Block — 19 May 2004 on 2:09 pm | Link

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